R.I.P.D. Review

This is what Comic-Con has begat. This scenario: Some producer with a three picture deal with some studio rushes down to San Diego one summer in a panic, trolling the booths, looking for a “hot property” to license to get all these dressed up nerds into a movie theatre. Over there, in the Dark Horse booth, is one that is about a police department made up of dead cops who have to come back to earth to capture escaped dead people, or dead-o’s as they are called. “Awesome, I’ll take it!” says the producer. Armed with a stack of these newly found comic books, he slams them down on the desk Monday morning in the L.A. production office. “This is the movie we’re making, and the good news is, it’s already storyboarded!!”

This is what Comic-Con has begat. This scenario: Some producer with a three picture deal with some studio rushes down to San Diego one summer in a panic, trolling the booths, looking for a “hot property” to license to get all these dressed up nerds into a movie theatre. Over there, in the Dark Horse booth, is one that is about a police department made up of dead cops who have to come back to earth to capture escaped dead people, or dead-o’s as they are called. “Awesome, I’ll take it!” says the producer. Armed with a stack of these newly found comic books, he slams them down on the desk Monday morning in the L.A. production office. “This is the movie we’re making, and the good news is, it’s already storyboarded!!”

I imagine this is the case because there is an EPIC FAIL in screenwriting here. A classic blunder that Syd Field warns you about in day two of his seminar! And that is THE INCITING INCIDENT IS ON PAGE 27!!!!!! There wasn’t one hack suit or punch up guy that noticed that? The note should of read, put “page 27 on page 10.” For those who didn’t take Syd’s course, or ever read a book on how to write a screenplay (which seems to be everyone involved), a screenplay is a blueprint for your movie. Each page roughly equals a minute of screen time, so 10 mins in you should have an action or incident that INCITES the characters off on their story. Here they mistook Nick’s secret of hiding gold as the incident when it REALLY was a dead-o hiding gold that the started their story. By the time you get to this motor, 27 minutes have passed and no one cares!!!! SO SIMPLE a fix and no one did it.

And for the first 30 seconds I was SO EXCITED for this movie. Opens on a monster chase, action, clever camera angles, everything. Then Ryan Reynold’s voice “I don’t know when this all happen, maybe 3 or 4 days ago.”

Cut to: Screen Title “3 or 4 days ago,” in comic sans font no less.

THEN 25 minutes of set up… FUCK ME, really? His partner, his wife, his death, the recruitment scene, the reveal of the R.I.P.D. office which was almost shot-for-shot the MIB office reveal. Then the partner assignment, then how they get to earth… Clip that shit to a series of flashbacks as he is learning on his first day!!! We are not that dumb. And stop following the way it was laid out in the comic book.

In fact, one day in the future, I will do a re-edit of this thing and make it watchable and possibly highly entertaining. That is because there were many entertaining things about this. Jeff Bridges doing his True Grit thing, Kevin Bacon doing his cop thing first and then his X-Men: First Class baddie thing second. Reynolds tries to bring the yuks, but he was hamstrung by a tin ear for timing. Comedic pace that was probably there on the day was cut to the rhythm of a dirge. What was to be snappy banter comes across as long winded diatribes that end with us joining in with Reynolds when he says “Just shut up, please be quiet.” Comedy duos are hard to do right. Bud Abbott, Dean Martin, and Oliver Hardy were all straight men to the quirkier comedic fellows of teams. Still, they had to be pitch perfect in their hang times after a gag line, the angle of attack on comeback, and the precise yet casual delivery of the set up. These require a bit more thought than “What’s my motivation and where’s my eye line?” which is all the craft that was applied here.

I guess it is easy to arm chair direct, but this feels like it was arm chair produced! Another scenario – same producer:

“Hey look at the comic book, doesn’t that one character look like Jeff Bridges from True Grit. Yeah? Let’s get him.” “How about this other guy?” “Well, it’s funny right? Who is a funny 30-something that can carry a movie? That Ryan guy.” “Gosling?”“No, he’s the drama 30-something that can carry a movie… ““Reynolds?”“Right him! Now we need a guy who can work with old people and make them funny. What was the last movie where old actors were funny?” “Marigold Hotel?” “No, has to be ACTION. How about the guy who did RED? Get him. The rest works itself out. I’m getting waxed, see you at the premiere.”

There was so much there and really, the first job should have been to read the comic book you licensed and then ask, “What is great about this, what tone should it have, and how should we capture that?” Do that next time and see that a movie is different than a comic book.

Dean Haglund

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Author: Dean Haglund

Dean is probably best known for his nine seasons playing Langly, one of the computer geeks known as “The Lone Gunmen” from the hit FOX TV series The X-Files. He is also a filmmaker, podcaster, writer and painter. www.deanhaglund.com